The plane that was recovered is a U.S. Republic P-47 "Thunderbolt" fighter bomber from the 79th Fighter Group, 86th Fighter Squadron, which was stationed at the coastal airport of Cesenatico at that time. When weather conditions improved, the Allies launched the decisive attack on the Gothic Line, the last German defense system blocking access to the Po Valley, in mid-April 1945. At that time, the powerful single-engine Republic P-47 "Thunderbolt", heavily armed with bombs, rockets and eight Browning .50 caliber machine guns in its wings, carried out most of its tasks; its close support of the ground forces inflicted heavy losses on the German units retreating towards the Po river and targeting the Alpine passes. On April 21, 1945, the day of Bologna’s liberation, a group of 12 "Thunderbolt" fighter-bombers flew from Cesenatico to Bagnarola, a small village in the municipality of Budrio. 1st Lieutenant Loren E. Hintz, a 26-year-old man originally from Iowa but living in Glendale, California, was one of the pilots on that mission. He was on his 66th mission and was sure that he would soon return home. The targets assigned on that day were concentrations of German troops barricaded in country homes in the Budrio area, theoretically a ground attack mission like many others during this last phase of the war. Reports say that Hintz was one of the last to hit the target, and without the element of surprise he was immediately targeted and shot down by German light anti-aircraft guns, consisting mainly of machine guns and 20 mm cannons. At the end of the war only a few charred remains were recovered from the crash site, together with the service weapon whose serial number enabled reliable identification of the pilot. The search for Loren in the countryside of Budrio took several years. In summer 2012 Gianluca Ing. Mazzanti participated in research sponsored by his friend Giampiero Fabbri, but without great results. Fabbri, however, did not give up and, mainly thanks to oral testimonies, found the exact point of impact, which was verified in November 2015 by the instrumentation of Archeologi dell'Aria.
Source: Gianluca Ing. Mazzanti
